


sine qua non

by atlasarchivist



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Friendship is Magic, Gen, No Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 10:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16038548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlasarchivist/pseuds/atlasarchivist
Summary: a character piece concerning morinth, an ardat-yakshi attempting to pay her debt to (a non-descriptive renegade) commander shepard. set some time during the events of mass effect 3.





	sine qua non

She is a woman of fire in part and pieces, collected and refined, refurbished bits that are divided to make the whole. Born again, she says, but she is different from before. Morinth did not know her then, when she was just the first human SPECTRE, when she was only a born & bred Alliance woman, a Hero by media standards. But Morinth knows her now. Stalwart. Stoic. Eyes that watch and study. Words that drip from her serpentine tongue are laced with poison and authority. A pragmatic human, which has become increasingly rare.

It is what she respects, Shepard’s pragmatism. She is not the one who will bend her will toward silly, idealistic things like hope and friendship. She is not someone who seeks honor. She is vengeance. She is a warrior.

_And she is late._

Morinth waits on a precarious edge, leaning against the long bar, keeping an even expression despite her growing anxiety. She chose the club that Aria deigned beneath her because it would not do well to be noticed. Bad enough Shepard was unmistakable, Morinth too had not grown into the name that followed after Omega-4. The irony of it was still funny, however.

Morinth taps her manicured nails on the crystalline bar top in time with the burgeoning beat resonating in the small club. Bodies mill restlessly on the dance floor and the smell of sweat and relief is everywhere. They are all desperate, fearful and ready to accept their end. Such infinitely willful and resilient creatures who bend the knee so easily — _it is disgusting_.

She sighs as she turns back to the bartender, motioning for another drink. The barman leans in when he returns, eyes dancing down to the line of her breast and her hands that appear so delicate, but bear scars and calluses, hands that wrapped her around mother’s throat. And for a moment, he is not there and she is back in that apartment, facing her end.

_Tendons snap and she can feel the muscle giving in. She can hear the shrill sound of a final breath passing through lips Morinth inherited. She can see so keenly the light fading from the eyes they shared. It is a sensory memory that evokes no feeling. She had thought there would have been relief, an unerring calm that would have filled her and brought peace. Instead, nothing. Just the callus whisper of apathy that crawled through her mind. And it was reflected in the eerie crimson of Shepard’s eyes._

_She said nothing, did not even spare a passing glance to the still-warm body of the Justicar lain upon the floor._

Morinth had pictured it a thousand times, in a thousand different ways and when she finally achieved her goal it was … lackluster, to say the very least. And she chided herself, resented that Shepard had given assistance. Morinth knew she could never have taken on her mother alone, she was ever the only one who made her falter, who stole her innate perfection and made mockery of it.

She shakes her head, bearing back into the present where the bartender is leaning across, taking her hand in his and running a thumb along her palm. She pulls away shyly; though the atmosphere is a pleasurable one, she is not here for a hunt. She is here for business, her last refuge in a belabored galaxy. And of late, business had been good — _very good, indeed_.

Through her new set of clients — artists and singers, respectively — Morinth had come across a number of discrepancies. Traitors, the lot of them, selling their hungry mouths for a scrap of information, selling out each other to anyone offering up a bounty. Cerberus kept their dirty fingers in all arenas, it seemed. One of them, Ange Martin was an honest to goodness, old fashioned sort of defector — a singer proliferating the supposed strength and indomitable will of all humanity. How Morinth was the only one to see the message between the lines — she would never guess.

Regardless of the how or why, Shepard needed this information. Morinth knew her debt to the stoic woman and tit for tat would pay in kind. Her life continuing was the imperative, for in truth, Cerberus meant so little to the ardat-yakshi. They were just another human organization bent on dominance in a galaxy that hardly had time for war, let alone tactical dissension. Perhaps it was just the view of the asari — leaders rise and fall, the cycle ever repeating.

She checked her watch discreetly, sighing when she realized it had been over an hour past their arranged time. Perhaps Shepard had designed this meeting to be far too clandestine — though, in truth, Morinth had heard much about the SPECTRE. High stake games, affiliations with known and active Cerberus operatives — quite the laundry list for the proverbial savior of the galaxy. But again, Morinth cared little for these things. She had a debt to pay, simply put and it was her foremost concern. Whether Shepard showed or even investigated the minuscule lead made no difference — either way Morinth would be free and clear, in the end.


End file.
